Comparison of the Effectiveness of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and Unified Transdiagnostic Therapy on the Depression and Anxiety Symptoms of Adolescents with Generalized Anxiety Disorder

The incidence of generalized anxiety disorder causes serious damage to people's cognitive, communication, and social processes and increases anxiety and depression. The current study aimed to compare the cognitive-behavioral and integrated transdiagnostic therapies effectiveness on depression and anxiety symptoms in adolescents with generalized anxiety disorder.

Methods and Materials:

 The current research was quantitative and semi-experimental with a pre-test-post-test design and a 2-month follow-up with the control group. The statistical population consisted of all adolescents with a generalized anxiety disorder who were referred to the counseling centers of Khorramabad city. Among them, 45 eligible adolescents were included in the study with the convenience sampling method and randomly divided into two cognitive-behavioral therapy, unified transdiagnostic therapy groups, and a control group. To collect data, the depression, anxiety, and stress scale (DASS) (Laviband and Laviband, 1995) was used. Likewise, analysis of variance with repeated measures and Bonferroni's post hoc test were used for data analysis.

The results of data analysis revealed that cognitive-behavioral therapy had a significant effect on reducing depression and anxiety (p<0.01), however, unified transdiagnostic therapy was effective in reducing depression and anxiety symptoms (p<0.001). Likewise, no significant difference was observed between the two groups of cognitive-behavioral therapy and unified transdiagnostic therapy on the reduction of depression and anxiety symptoms.

Based on the findings, there is no significant difference between the effectiveness of the two methods. These two treatment approaches can be used as effective interventions for depression and anxiety of adolescents with generalized anxiety disorder.